Keeping track of the details as you get down to business (scrupulous recording of minutes enhances communication and promotes understanding).

• Author: Hunter, Laird

Recent columns here have looked at the implications of a number of prominent, contemporary court cases dealing with issues affecting charities and non-profits. These rulings are important for people to know about so that they can broadly understand how the law is developing and could affect what they do. However, the fact is that daily life in most organizations is focused on the mundane tasks of having meetings, making decisions, and getting on with doing the multitude of tasks which when woven together constitute the carrying out of the organization's mission.

While these newsworthy cases have much to say about the general direction of the law of volunteer organizations, they say little about the legal nature of their meetings, decisions, and mission. There are no high profile cases dealing with these issues in the context of non-profits and charities. But there is a wealth of rulings by various courts in general corporate law which do provide a reasonably clear picture of what should be done on these topics, particularly meetings. Keeping these general principles in mind goes a long way to providing ready assistance to organizations and the people who work with them who "take the odd meeting".

One of the better written resources in this area begins by observing that whenever people get together for common purpose, their interaction is based on communication, development of relationships, and mutual understanding (King M. K. and Kerr H.W. Procedures for Meetings and Organizations. 3rd ed. 1996). Minutes can make an important contribution to furthering each of these three foundations. But additionally, minutes have a formal, legal purpose -- to be the official record of a meeting, to specify what was done and what was decided. The word minute comes from a Latin word which means short or brief, the implication being that minutes are a brief record, not a detailed description of everything that occurred. When you prepare minutes, it is useful to adopt the perspective of looking back, imagining that you are some weeks or even years down the road reading what you are about to write. What will you want to know? Perhaps as important at what you are looking for is what you won't want to have to read.

When making your review, I suspect you will want to know one of two things: information the meeting received or decisions which the meeting took. The first kind of minute indicates what happened and the second records a resolution of what was...